Articulatory errors in mainstreamed hard-of-hearing and deaf children

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare the kinds of articulatory errors made by hard-of-hearing and deaf children integrated into regular public schools. Tape recordings were made of the children reading a set of test sentences. Phoneme scores were generated for each child based on the number of phonemes correctly produced. Results showed that although the deaf group produced significantly more phoneme errors than the hard-of-hearing group, the pattern of errors was very similar for both groups of children. That is, the relative frequency of different error types within each group was similar. These patterns were also quite similar to those previously obtained from children at schools for the deaf. Thus, to a first approximation, for the case of segmental errors, the primary difference between the two groups of children is that of frequency or error rather than differences in the pattern of phoneme errors. [Research supported by NINCDS.]